


Visible Truths

by samskeyti



Category: Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-19
Updated: 2010-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-08 03:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samskeyti/pseuds/samskeyti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obersturmführer Dieter Hellstrom assists in interrogating a special prisoner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Visible Truths

Colonel Otto von Glück was one of those men whose short stature had been a lifetime's vexation, even as he made up for it in other dimensions. In late middle age he is a portly, puffed-up, tedious man. A bantam of a man, yet nonetheless a prestigious one. Following him into the labyrinthine tunnels and close passages of the dungeon – Colonel von Glück hurrying ahead like an excited bumblebee – Obersturmführer Dieter Hellstrom is conscious of the clean lines of his own posture, the crispness of his step. The double-time clacking of von Glück's heels makes Hellstrom deliberately slow his own steps so that each swing of his legs is emphasised.

The simple act of standing to attention beside the Colonel felt, in their contrast, like preening. One couldn't help that the uniform flattered a certain type, that one's mouth, even in repose, held a hint of a generous yet cruel curve, that in certain – several to be accurate – lights one could be considered austerely beautiful. One could merely do one's best to appear at ease with it.

Although Hellstrom now worked with no small degree of independence – with cases of his own, subordinates under his command, the satisfaction of seeing the results of his painstaking investigations written in terrified detail on the faces of his prey – von Glück had requested the presence, the skilled assistance of several of the most promising officers with his extended interrogation of the Reich's prize captive. It was a case intriguing and unusual enough that Hellstrom's initial irritation had given way to genuine curiosity.

The Colonel halts them in a passageway, presumably close to their destination. An old-fashioned lantern on the wall flickers orange light over his face, giving him a ruddy, apopleptic glow.

A week ago, they caught the scourge of the Gestapo, Hugo Stiglitz. They caught him with a knife strapped to his chest and another in his boot, cowering behind a shepherdess statue in Brigadeführer Hoffmann's garden. "They say," the Colonel gives a lizard-lipped grin, "they say a valet came across him while walking the Brigadeführer's Italian greyhound. Kleiner Pepi almost pissed on him." Von Glück gave a violent, wheezing laugh that, Hellstrom was gratified to find, stopped almost as soon as it began.

"I believe, in reality, the Brigadeführer's men were armed with more than a hound." He gave a conspiratorial smirk that Hellstrom returned precisely. This was one of his minor yet satisfying amusements, mimicking the expressions of another with the utmost fidelity and watching unease settle around them, waiting for them to notice, to blush and fluster and trip themselves over, all the while never quite sure what it is that so disturbs them. He allows himself the pleasure just this once with the Colonel.

Von Glück nods at a young trooper who approaches holding a sheaf of keys. A second youth, who could be his blond twin, is a step behind him, bearing a whip in his hands. "All is in readiness, sir," says the first and the four men round the corner to enter the interrogation room.

The room is itself a cell, one kept unoccupied and fitted with rings on the walls and a heavy chair bolted to the floor. Hellstrom is used to extracting confessions in more mundane settings and while watching a man break down, break until he tells Hellstrom the truth punctuated by horrified sobs in an ordinary little room, a room where nothing more than a clerk marking a ledger could be expected to happen – while that has a strange thrill all of its own, this chamber with its ancient and showy brutality is, Hellstrom admits, a stirring sight.

The prisoner is seated facing the far wall, so as they linger outside the barred door he appears only as a shape. The Colonel looks at Hellstrom and says, "You're not to kill him, Obersturmführer. The Führer wants him."

Hellstrom nods and snaps his heels together. "Understood, sir."

Von Glück gives an unctuous smile. Hellstrom keeps his expression neutral. His pulse is running a fraction faster than before a routine job and it isn't that this case sparks a prurient curiosity in him. No – a case so bizarre is, after all, a rare opportunity, a chance to study twists and depths of character the average Gestapo officer can only have imagined.

On entering the room, Hellstrom gets a look at Feldwebel Stiglitz. He sits, chained to the chair, clearly unwashed for several days and roughly shaved perhaps more recently. A gash is crusted over one eye and a series of lines, – a riding crop, perhaps – mark his jaw. Von Glück sweeps into the room and says, "Good day, Stiglitz," with a pantomime disgust. Stiglitz holds his head up and grimaces like a Pinscher. He does, at this point, still have a full and even set of teeth.

Hellstrom smiles slowly, the way one does on entering a room and catching the eye of a comely young lady, one whose acquaintance is not yet made, but will be – she may be sure of it. Stiglitz strains forwards in his chains, throttling – again interestingly beast-like – before slumping back to glare at the officers. Hellstrom grins.

He rocks back on his heels a little, chin thrust out as he studies the man, the notorious killer. His eyes are odd and unflinching, flat like grey stone. Hellstrom wonders if he could see a little of himself in those eyes, if he looked long enough, but mostly ne wants to make that hard, stoic face dissolve.

Von Glück motions for him to approach the prisoner and he stands beside him, taps a heel once, twice on the ground.

"You planned all of this yourself?" he begins. He snorts. "I don't believe it."

The prisoner doesn't respond. Hellstrom scrapes his boot on the stone, slow and dissatisfied, then audibly lowers his heel. Silence. He pulls Stiglitz' head back, bends to hiss, "Answer him, swine," in his ear. He twists his hair once more before releasing him.

They go on in this manner for some time, von Glück questioning, Stiglitz sullen and largely mute. Hellstrom paces behind him, thwacks at his shoulders with a bored sigh when Stiglitz swears at the Colonel.

Von Glück says, evenly and without concern, "You are going to die." He runs his fingers over his mustache absently, then grins as if he's recalled something dear to his heart. "However, it will not be until we are satisfied."

Hellstrom leans in behind him, runs his finger up the back of Stiglitz' neck. Stiglitz' head drops momentarily, almost imperceptibly before jerking back against Hellstrom's finger. A delicious thrill hums in his stomach and he cups his hand around the prisoner's nape, giving a forceful press of fingers and thumb before he pushes him away. He'd like to grab his neck again but he steps back, holding his hand by his side, fingers spread like they're dripping with filth. Stiglitz lifts his head again, the muscles of his neck taut and defiant and Hellstrom feels a ticking urge – in his wrist and tucked up under his ribs. He taps his index finger on his belt and waits for the Colonel's next cue.

"Have you the piano wire?" asks von Glück and Dieter sighs softly, regretfully.

"No, not on my person." He turns back to Stiglitz with a disappointed pout, making his eyes huge and sorrowful, before lifting one side of his mouth in a smirk.

He crosses behind the chair and as the Colonel poses his next question he raps Stiglitz in the back of the head with the side of his fist. "Names," he says, "You know their names." Stiglitz spits on the floor at his side. The chains binding him hang in an extra loop over his chest and Hellstrom draws it up to his neck as his spare hand draws his weapon. Stiglitz gives a low growl and Hellstrom twists the chain in his fist until the sound stops. He gives a murmur of approval at the tears pricking at the corners of Stiglitz' eyes.

He repeats von Glück's question. "If you weren't given your information," he speaks slowly, with the mock-gentle tones of a bully cornering a runt, "You must have stolen it. Now, where?"

Holding his gun to the corner of Stiglitz' mouth, he pulls the skin up then down, mirroring the movement with his own face, giving himself a clown's glee and sorrow. "Where?"

Stiglitz stares up at him and sneers. Hellstrom surveys the chains, the possible slack, the bullet he knows is in the chamber and the contortions this creature is likely capable of, and decides.

He brings his left hand to Stiglitz' throat and spans his windpipe, thumb pressing deep into the flesh alongside as he traces his lips with the gun. He feels him swallow against his hand and before he realizes what he's doing, Dieter wets his own lips with his tongue. The prisoner's eyes narrow and the tiniest twitch of his nostrils tells Dieter he saw.

Hellstrom forces him back on the chair with the hand at his throat and finds he wants to push right into his space, against his side or his leg but the heights and angles are all wrong. He slides his finger off the trigger and eases the gun between Stiglitz' lips.

He leans progressively closer and when Stiglitz' face is right before his own, flushed and sweat-streaked with his eyes growing red, Dieter raises his knee until it rests, almost carelessly but with definite pressure on Stiglitz' torso. He spasms under the hand on his throat and his expression is as hard and loathing as ever, even as the corners of his eyes threaten to overflow.

Hellstrom pulls the gun away, releases his grip on his throat and the prisoner gasps and rattles but doesn't lower his gaze. His lips are red, wet, with the beginnings of swelling where the gun dragged. Dieter takes a couple of swift, shallow breaths between his teeth and slaps Hugo hard across the face.

Von Glück doesn't get the information he requires, although he seems well enough pleased with his observations. Outside the room he shakes his head. "Difficult work," he says. "The most animalistic of them have no sense of their own mortality."

Hellstrom begins a murmur of agreement when von Glück holds up one of his plump-fingered hands.

"A fine job, Obersturmführer Hellstrom," says the Colonel. He looks lingeringly down Hellstrom's body, returns to his face with a smile that makes Dieter flash hot and sickly all over, but he won't, he will not look away. He holds his spine perfectly straight, pulling himself a little taller as he stares back at von Glück, one of his fine brows slightly raised. Von Glück still smiles. "Beautiful."


End file.
